ICT-Supported, Inter Disciplinary Project Environments In AEC-Education For Internationally Composed Teams

In Europe the real estate industry currently undergoes a dramatic change process in most countries. From a former regionally organized branch of domestic economy acting in mostly confined markets an internationally operating industry is currently emerging. International competitiveness on the investors' side and performance competition of the AEC industry are increasingly dominating the line of business. In this environment, new processes and organizations with partly virtual collaboration gain in importance. In order to prepare students for these challenges, the "Project Oriented Learning Environment" (POLE) has been created as a novel curriculum project at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and an international network of collaborating universities has been established. This paper will present the concept of POLE as well as findings and experiences of the simultaneous projects with students working in multi-disciplinary and locally distributed teams.